Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen

The huge restaurant, next to Route 608 at the edge of Middlefield, attracts tour buses and cars full of visitors who come to eat and shop in the heart of Geauga County’s Amish country.

On summer days, when business is strongest, it’s not unusual for 1,500 people to come through the doors at 14743 N. State St. That’s according to General Manager Tina Rasmussen, who has worked at Mary Yoder’s for 24 years.

“At breakfast alone, we serve a regular crowd of 160 people,” she said.

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Breakfast is available from 7 to 11 a.m. Monday, Friday and Saturday.

As with other establishments throughout Amish country, business is not conducted on Sundays. And the restaurant is not licensed to serve beer, wine or liquor.

Although a portrait of Mary Yoder hangs in the restaurant’s foyer, and it employs Amish folks in the kitchen and a few as servers, it is not an Amish-owned restaurant. Like many other businesses in the community, it is owned by a Mennonite couple.

“Mary Yoder was the mother of Barb Hall, our first general manager, 30 years ago when we opened,” explained Rasmussen. “She named it after her mom, and many of the recipes used were her mother’s.”

But a month after Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen opened, Hall was killed in an auto accident, so she never got to see the popularity resulting from her vision, Rasmussen said.

The Amish religion emphasized a separation from mainstream life of Yankees, as non-Amish people are called by the Amish. Their faith was derived in the 1600s, when they split off from the Mennonites in Switzerland and immigrated in the next century to America, where William Penn promised sanctuary and freedom of worship in what became Pennsylvania. There, the Amish became known as Pennsylvania Dutch.

Although they don’t believe in strict separation from the world, Mennonites share many of the same beliefs as the Amish, said Robyn Morris, a Burton women who interprets Amish culture for outsiders. Thus, she said, they usually have businesses that deal with Yankees, as non-Amish people are known among the Amish in Geauga.

The clues about the ownership of Mary Yoder’s is clear to those who know how to look.

“An Amish woman would never have her name on a business,” Morris said.

Although there’s a hitching post and a “Whoa” on the stop sign at the exit to Route 608, few horse-and-buggy combos are seen at the restaurant. Amish businesses are likely operated from their homes and marked by a small hand-lettered sign at the end of the driveway, she said.

Records in the Geauga County Recorder’s office indicate Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen is owned by Larry and Donna Kannal, who live in Kent.

Although it’s not a bonafide Amish experience, the restaurant’s menu is quite similar to the food served in an Amish home. Despite that hitching post for Amish buggies in the parking lot, most customers come in their cars and others arrive by tour bus.

Tour bus passengers have their own entrance and dining room so as not to disturb other diners. The banquet room seats 200.

Although the menu boasts its chicken salad is “made with our own chicken,” no chickens are raised at the restaurant.

“It’s made from the whole chickens we buy and use for our other dishes,” an Amish-clad server confirmed.

Asked if she was wearing a uniform or if she was herself Amish and that was her own attire, she said she wore her own clothing and was Amish.

Mary Yoder’s Amish Kitchen employs 75 people, with most of the Amish working in the kitchen, according to the general manager. Just a few Amish women work as servers.

Ten years ago, she said, the restaurant expanded its gift shop, which now is just about the same size as the main dining room. The rear of that space is devoted to the sale of whole pies, bread and other baked goods.

Rasmussen said the hot sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy are the favorite dishes for customers. Sandwich choices are roast beef, roast pork, roast turkey or meatloaf. “No sharing,” admonishes the menu for the hot sandwiches, which are priced at $9.99. Many order the half-order, priced at $8.99, because they are so filling. Senior dinners, available for those 60 and older, also are smaller and slightly less expensive. There is a children’s menu, as well.

“It’s our homemade bread that makes them so good,” Rasmussen said of the sandwiches, adding that bakers arrive at 4 a.m. each day to prepare the bread, rolls, pies and other baked goods. “Everything we do is made from scratch.”

The full menu is served on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The menu remains the same for lunch and dinner.

Noodles over mashed potatoes is the carb-intensive offering noted on the menu in boldface as “An Amish special.” The date nut pudding, on the 11-item dessert menu, is another Amish reference, noted on the menu as a “delicious Amish recipe.” An additional menu is devoted to pies and cakes, offering 33 desserts, including an apple dumpling.

Amish food can be so bountiful because of the heavy exercise most Amish get as farmers and laborers. They travel by horse and buggy, farm and do daily tasks without the use of electricity, and they conduct their daily lives without telephones and internet from dawn to dusk. Women cook with wood stoves, use an old-fashioned wringer washer for laundry and hang out clothing to dry on sunny days.